Simurgh Arts is so excited to share that RAWIFest is coming to Houston this year!!! This is a rare oppurtunity to attend a festival presented and featuring some of the country’s—and international community’s—finest artists! Join us in attending this awesome festival at the University of Houston! Register here!

This 2025 RAWIFest conference features keynote addresses by Fady Joudah and Noor Naga; workshops from Leila Chatti, Maryan Nagy Captan, Aisha Abdel Gawad, Nadia Khansa, and Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative; a performance by Fargo Nissim Tbakhi; and panels and readings from many, many more! Learn more about the festival program here!

About RAWIFest:

RAWIFest is a biannual conference that has been held for three decades and running, bringing together Arab and SWANA creatives as well as non-SWANA allies–not only poets, prose writers, and playwrights, but visual artists, performance artists, musicians, educators and scholars–both in diaspora in North America as well as from other regions. At RAWIFest, we aim to create a space where we can talk amongst ourselves and highlight voices and people threatened by erasure. In a global climate where opportunities for Arab and SWANA creatives to share our experiences and insights is limited, RAWI’s biennial gathering provides a rare opportunity to bring a large number of Arab American and SWANA writers, artists, and scholars (and their readers, allies, and admirers) into the same inclusive and welcoming space so we can engage in various dialogues otherwise unavailable to us.